Friday, April 28, 2017

We rolled out for the first test flight on April 25th and found a rigging problem in the braking system, so the flight test was aborted after a short taxi and it was back in the hangar to fix.

Wednesday, April 26th was the day! Good weather was forecast and observed all the way - even a tailwind! After a test flight, during which I stayed close overhead Bob White Airport, the airplane was checked over one last time and we set off for North Carolina.

The route was the reverse from our flight down in December 2012 and was planned for three stops - I don't push fuel limits and I wanted to check consumption as well as oil and airframe components. The stops were Lake City FL, Hazelhurst GA, Washington-Wilkes County (just a little north of my original planned stop at Thomson) GA, and home base of Transylvania Community Airport near Brevard NC. The bread crumbs in the picture above show a little westerly diversion to avoid military operating areas and a large temporary flight restriction over the Okeefenokee Swamp due to forest fires there.

Quite a change from the first time the airplane and I saw each other . . .

Friday, April 14, 2017

So close I can taste it.The engine was run today after a pre-oiling. Prop looks a bit wonky owing to the shutter speed. There will be someone who wants one just like it so I'm taking orders.https://youtu.be/IKHcExt7GOUMalcolm says there are no leaks and everything checks out. Fingers crossed, we may be ready to see if this thing will fly! I already know we (ok, just the airplane) lost a little weight from before we started - not much, but a little is good.

Sunday, April 02, 2017

Almost finished, just not quite ... we ran into a few issues on rollout that have to be corrected so I did a 180 and left Florida for North Carolina by car and will wait for the magicians to abra all their cadabras.

Sure looks good

Thanks to Joe Dunn for the great pictures

Some things you want to get done, but rushing to a completion is no way to do it. The trip was not wasted - sometimes a fresh set of eyes can see new things, especially after working on a project for 3 1/2 years. The expectations were already high - now they are better defined and we'll have a magnificent airplane.